1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and a signal transmission method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Mobile terminals exemplified by mobile phones frequently include a movable member as a connecting portion between an operation portion operated by a user and a display portion in which information is displayed. For example, an opening/ closing structure of a folding mobile phone is typical of such a movable member. Further, recent mobile phones have, in addition to the calling and mail functions, a viewing function of images or an imaging function and thus, it is necessary for the connecting portion to be movable in a complex manner in accordance with usage of the user. When the viewing function of images is used, for example, the user desires to direct the display portion toward the user and the operation portion unnecessary for viewing put away. Thus, a structure allowing the orientation or position of the display portion to change in accordance with usage thereof when a mobile phone is used as an ordinary phone, used as a digital camera, used as a TV set and the like is demanded.
As a matter of fact, a large number of signal lines and power lines are wired through the connecting portion between the operation portion and display portion. For example, several tens of wires are connected in parallel in the display portion (see FIG. 1). Thus, if a movable member capable of making complex motions described above is used as a connecting portion, reliability and the like of such wires will significantly decrease. For such reasons, technology used is being shifted from the parallel transmission method to the serial transmission method (see FIG. 2) to reduce the number of signal lines in the connecting portion. Naturally, a technological shift for similar reasons is not limited to the world of mobile phones and occurs in the world of various electronic devices in which complex wiring is demanded. In addition to the above reason, serialization also seeks to reduce electromagnetic noise (EMI: Electro Magnetic Interference).
In the serial transmission method, transmission data is transmitted after being encoded according to a predetermined method. For example, the NRZ (Non Return to Zero) coding mode, Manchester coding mode, or AMI (Alternate Mark Inversion) coding mode is used as the coding mode. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 3-109843, for example, discloses a technology to transmit data by using the AMI code, which is a typical example of bipolar code. Further, the Patent Document also discloses a technology to represent and transmit a data clock by a median value of a signal level and reproduce the data clock based on the signal level on the receiving side.